Threads and Flames by Esther Friesner

Author:Esther Friesner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

Raisa’s first day at Triangle Waists was so different from her time in Madame’s shop that at first she thought it was a happy dream. After breakfast, she walked with Gavrel and Fruma to the towering Asch Building, just off Washington Square.

“I wonder what Glukel would say if she could see me now, going to work in a place so high that I’ve got to ride an elevator to get there?” Raisa said happily. “I don’t know if she’d be proud or scared.”

“Why should she be scared?” Fruma asked.

“The building’s so tall, what if I got too close to one of the windows? What if I fell out, God forbid? What if this, what if that”—she shrugged—“you know.”

“If Glukel was a second mother to you, like you say, I bet she’d talk like she was scared, but in her heart she’d be so proud of you, she could burst,” Gavrel replied.

“I can’t wait to write to her about this,” Raisa said, then paused and corrected herself. “I mean, when you have the chance to write to her for me, Gavrel.”

“No you don’t,” Gavrel said, wagging a finger in her face. “You’re going to write your own letters soon. Why else did you sign up for that night course?”

“It’s an English course,” Raisa reminded him. “Glukel can’t read English.”

“Well, there’s still no excuse for you not learning how to write your own letters. What am I, your servant?” he teased. “Lincoln freed the slaves.”

“So did Moses,” Raisa countered. “So you’ve got two excuses for not helping me: one American, one Jewish.”

“Why should there be a difference?” Fruma said.

They entered the building together and joined the crowd waiting to take the small elevators reserved for employees. Raisa got separated from Fruma and Gavrel in the crush of bodies, but wasn’t concerned. The three of them didn’t work on the same floor anyway, and they’d already made plans for where to meet when the workday was over, before they headed home.

The Triangle factory occupied the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Asch Building. The only thing higher was the roof. When Raisa was hired, she was assigned to a ninth-floor workstation. Though she’d seen her new workplace when she came to apply for the job, she was still impressed by the size of the shop.

Her eyes traveled over the eight wood tables that ran almost the entire length of the factory floor. Each four-foot-wide table actually consisted of two smaller ones, each with fifteen sewing machine operators facing one another over a central gutter to hold finished pieces for pickup. The aisles between the workers in their rows of wooden chairs were narrow and crowded even before all of the girls were at their places for the day.

This is incredible. And to think all this belongs to two men who came here through Ellis Island, just like me! They call Mr. Blanck and Mr. Harris the shirtwaist kings, but I didn’t know they had a real kingdom! She looked at the arrangement

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